Solomon "Sol" Garfunkel PhD born 1943, in Brooklyn, New York, is an American mathematician who has dedicated his career to mathematics education. Since 1980, Garfunkel has served as the executive director of the award winning non-profit organization the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications.[1] . Working with teachers, students, and business people to create learning environments where mathematics is used to investigate and model real issues in our world.
Sol is best known for hosting the 1987, PBS series titled "For All Practical Purposes: An Introduction to Contemporary Mathematics", followed by the series, "Algebra: In Simplest Terms". The wide spread use of these programs in classrooms all over the country, and having been aired all over the world Sol "MR.MATH" is pop culture icon in the mathematic community. He has also been seen in Professor Kapalans quantatative reasoning course.
At the age of 24, Sol received his PhD in Mathematical Logic from the University of Wisconsin–Madison . While in attendence he worked with Howard Jerome Keisler, Michael D. Morley, and Stephen Kleene. Dr. Garfunkel then served on faculty of Cornell University and the University of Connecticut at Storrs. Dr. Garfunkel continues his work advocating for the improvement of Mathematics in our public school systems. Coauthoring the article "How to Fix Our Math Education"[2] with David Mumford emeritus professor of mathematics at Brown University. Since published this article has been credited with successfully bringing new awareness to the topic. Interest and debate on the article has been become topic for a vast number of blogs and has been printed in several languages and counties. Sol has served as project director for several National Science Foundation curriculum projects, and in 2009 was awarded the Glenn Gilbert National Leadership Award from the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics.